The extraordinary highlight of Ryan Coogler's genre-bending vampire film Sinners is the phantasmagorical musical sequence — “I Lied to You"/"Magic What We Do (Surreal Montage)” — in which the genius of blues prodigy Sammie (newcomer Miles Caton) attracts the spirits of musicians and dancers from the past and future. This takes place during the grand opening of the juke joint owned by gangsters Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) in the Mississippi Delta of 1932. This was Coogler's way of showcasing the birth and evolution of “the devil's music” and its continuing cultural impact today.
But to pull off this electrying musical spectacle — composed by Ludwig Göransson and shot live as one continuous camera move in Imax by cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw — the director asked go-to production designer Hannah Beachler to bring the spirit of the Delta to the juke, yet through a modern lens with saturated color that had symbolic meaning.
“Ryan does so incredibly well in making entertainment that is really thoughtful as well,” Beachler says. “And for that space, Ryan and I talked about whether we wanted the juke joint to be a cotton gin or a sawmill. But we needed it to be abandoned and there on the waterway for a while. And cotton gins weren't often built on waterways and he wanted water, and the Delta has a history with sawmills where they kind of disappeared from Mississippi in the mid to late '20s. So we went with sawmill.
“Then I did as much research as possible in Clarksdale, Miss. [where the film takes place],” she continues, “because I needed to know about the wood, why it was in the water, what was going on with everything, who worked there, where they came from, who owned these private companies and bigger corporations, where the money was going, where the forest was.”
In particular, Beachler visited Dockery Farms, the 1895 plantation known as the birthplace of the Delta blues, and took notice of its vibrant colors and the patina of the wood. “Once I got all that information, understanding the layout of sawmills, I drew a small site plan and put all of this research together for Ryan as he was writing, so he could keep in consideration the blocking that he need for the fight, for all the things that happened in the juke joint or that he wanted to happen there. We just needed a back room and then I wanted the kitchen and the gambling room next to each other, and obviously a stage and a dance floor. And from there I had drawn sketches of the main builds and the juke joint being one of them.
Then Beachler scouted locations in Louisiana, where they were going to shoot, and decided on two physical locations for the juke: the exterior and partial interior was constructed on a former golf course on the bayou in Braithwaite, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and the entire two-floor interior and partial exterior were built on a stage at Second Line Studios in New Orleans.
“So we came in and braved the snakes and the alligators and cleared up a huge area so we could put the sawmill there,” Beachler adds. “But what was important for me was that we were building the way that they were building at the time. So using timber and rough sawn wood, which is wet wood cut straight from the tree. And then we spent a lot of time sourcing stuff from old sawmills and bringing them into our space. We also did quite a bit of aging. I wanted you to see it in two ways: in the daylight and then at night when it becomes a little more insidious and less safe.”
Another important aspect was the color of the juke. “I knew that it was going to be red. I wanted it to be rusted,” explains Beachler. This was in keeping with the color-coding designed for all of the world-building, which also included white for the church and "haint blue" for the house owned by hoodoo practioner Annie (Wunmi Mosaku).
“The red went with the hedonism, the capitalism, the blood, not just of life, but the blood to come [from the vampires],” Beachler adds. “And then everything started getting intricate and being designed a little bit more based on some of the other sets, like the white walls in the back room that represent the church. These were like putting little grace notes, whether it be color or a certain way that we built. That's where everything collides.”
There was also special consideration for the dance floor, which was built on the ground and had dirt on top. “And when Pearline [Jayme Lawson] sings and they're doing that 'hey, hey, hey, hey,' and Autumn goes in on the feet with her camera,” Beachler continues, “it was important to get that bounce and that dust coming up. That's when everybody is sultry, and they've got a cold drink in their hands. That's the feeling I got from the research, and those are the little details that I put in.”
Not surprisingly, there was even more intricate design work as part of the nearly four-minute “Surreal Montage” sequence. The stage needed to be a certain size, a couple of PAs were put in costume and disguised off to the side before bringing in the DJ tables, and they had to build some ramps for steadicam operator Renard Cheren to fly the Imax camera around the stage.
“When Ryan first started talking about the montage, I was like, 'What is this?' Beachler admits. “It took a minute to understand what it was. And it took more time for it to be shaped once he started rehearsing it. That's when I talked to [costume designer] Ruth [Carter], and seeing what she was building for some of these professional dancers. And when they shot it, they were recording all the music and everything live. So when you're there seeing everybody move, and all the different time periods and the costumes, and understanding what the moment really is representing, the feeling in the room was electric. There were close to 100 people on that set, and everyone had a purpose and a meaning. And, again, that is just something that Ryan does.”
